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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






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THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS SEEK ADVENTURES. 


(See page 32.) 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 


1 fttotietn Ferston 


BY 

MARTHA BAKER DUNN 


EUustrateb bg 

ETHELDRED B. BARRY 



BOSTON 

L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 

(incorporated) 

1898 





8894 


Copyright , 1898 

By L. C. Page and Company 

(incorporated) 



TWO COPlEo RECEIVED- 


Colonial Press : 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
Boston, U. S. A. 


2nl CGr 

1896 . 


T 




“ And I too dream’d, until at last 
Across my fancy, brooding warm, 
The reflex of a legend passed 
And loosely settled into form.” 

































* 


































































* 























CHAPTER 

I. The Arrival 


. 

. 

. 

. 

PAGE 

* 13 

II. The Departure . 

• 

• 

• 

• 

♦ 

• 31 

III. The Return 

. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 53 

IV. L’Envoi 






• 74 













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PAGE 

The Prince and the Princess seek adven- 
tures ....... Frontispiece 

‘“Who be you?’ she asked, bluntly” . . .17 

“‘What’s poetry?’ asked the Princess” . . 25 

“Hand in hand, they left the wharf” . . 35 

“ * I COUNTED THEM ALL OVER TWICE,’ THE PRINCE 

answered” 4 2 

The Princess hears a “pi-anner” . . . -49 

“ The Prince knocked timidly ” . . . *57 

“The Prince’s tired head - sank on the Prin- 
cess’s shoulder ” 7° 

“ Elizabeth knelt beside the lonely mounds ” . 78 

“ ‘ I used to think my mother looked like St. 


Cecilia ’ ” 


93 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


A MODERN VERSION. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE ARRIVAL. 

u Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 

And bring the fated fairy Prince.” 

The Princess lived, not in an enchanted pal- 
ace, but on an island in Penobscot Bay, a small 
island not more than a mile or two in its entire 
circumference, and boasting only one house in 
its domain, the tiny cottage which had always 
been the Princess’s home. She was a healthy, 
hearty, red-cheeked little creature, who, during 
the eight years of her brief existence, had ac- 
cepted her narrow life as she found it, with little 
thought or dream of anything beyond. 

The island lay green and beautiful around 
her, but her eye knew naught of beauty. The 
13 


14 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


wide, tossing sea was to her a convenient place 
for the setting of lobster-pots, a reservoir for 
merchantable fish, a highway for uncle Eph, in 
his voyages to “ the Banks.” The splendid con- 
stellations, wheeling above her head by night, 
brought no message to her. The lights of 
Summerport twinkled only four miles away, 
marking the beginning of that great, throbbing 
world of which the Princess knew nothing, for 
during all the eight years of her life she had 
never once set foot upon the mainland. 

It was a mighty world, — there was pulsing, 
happy life in it, and love and sorrow in it, — 
but the Princess knew as little of one as of the 
other. 

She ran wild over the rocks, grew tanned 
and healthy under summer suns, tended uncle 
Eph’s lobster-pots, managed a boat like a sailor, 
did her humble tasks, and slept at night the 
dreamless sleep of healthy childhood. Love, in 
its demonstration, was to her an unrevealed 
mystery. Uncle Eph and aunt Lizy were uni- 
formly kind to her, but kisses and caresses held 
no part in their rough philosophy. God was a 
being occasionally hinted at in the moments of 
uncle Eph’s rare profanity. Yet, withal, the 


THE ARRIVAL. 


15 


Princess felt neither loss nor lack. Life, thus 
far, had answered all her needs. Mind and heart 
were wholly unawakened, and no vague yearn- 
ings perplexed her healthy nature. 

The only dream that ever reached beyond the 
narrow limits of her life was a lively desire to 
behold a certain mysterious object called a “pl- 
anner,” which aunt Lizy had seen during one of 
her infrequent visits to “ the Main,” and which, 
according to her report, gave forth music “ fit 
for the angels.” Who the angels might be, the 
Princess had little idea. Her only conception 
of music was the wild shrilling of uncle Eph’s 
fife, but she fully intended, if she ever made her 
long-promised “v’yge” to the distant mainland, 
to seek out the angels’ headquarters, and listen 
with them to a performance which could so 
arouse aunt Lizy’s enthusiasm. 

One day, when uncle Eph returned from a 
trip to Summerport, he brought a passenger 
home with him. This was an unheard-of hap- 
pening, and the Princess looked at the slender, 
delicate boy, who stepped on shore, with wide, 
surprised eyes. She never dreamed that this was 
the Fairy Prince who had come to awaken her. 

“ Who be you ? ” she asked, bluntly. 


1 6 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 

“ My name is Arthur Heathcote Lenox,” the 
Prince replied. “ What is yours ? ” 

“Oh, my name’s ’Lizabeth Eaton. What 
ye goin’ to do here ? What’s uncle Eph 
brought ye for?” 

“He brought me because mamma is so very 
sick at Mrs. Hyde’s boarding-place, — though 
she’s better now,” added the little Prince, look- 
ing very sober. “ And they thought if I came 
here with your uncle, I might grow stronger, 
too.” 

“ Can you tend lobster-traps ? ” asked the 
Princess, judicially. 

“ I don’t think so. I never tried.” 

“ Can you manage a boat ? ” 

“Your uncle’s going to teach me, — he said 
he would,” the Prince said, eagerly. 

“ Ever dug any clams ? ” 

“ No-o,” slowly and reluctantly. 

“ Can you jibe, or reef the mains’l, or slack 
the sheets, or — ” 

“ Oh, dear me, no ! ” cried the poor Prince, 
aghast at his ignorance of useful accomplish- 
ments. 

“ Have you ever seen a pi-anner ? ” asked the 
Princess, as a final test. 



SHE ASKED, BLUNTLY.” 


“ ‘ WHO BE YOU ? ’ 

























































































THE ARRIVAL. 


19 


“Why, of course,” the Prince said, glad to 
reach something familiar at last ; “ mamma has 
one in the music-room at home, and she plays 
on it, too, just dandy.” 

“ Does she play to the angels ? ” the Princess 
inquired, much interested. 

“The angels!” the Prince exclaimed. 
“ Why, the angels are in heaven.” 

“Heaven, — where’s that? Oh, let’s come 
and see my boat,” cried the Princess, and in 
their absorbing interest in the Polly and her 
perfections, heaven and the angels were for the 
time forgotten. 

That night, however, when the Princess, clad 
in her little, coarse nightdress, peeped for a 
moment into the adjoining chamber, and saw a 
small, white-robed figure kneeling by the bedside 
in the starlight, she was fain to inquire, curiously : 

“ What ye scootchin’ down there for ? ” 

“ Why, Pm saying my prayers,” answered the 
surprised Prince. “ Don’t you say yours ? ” 

“What’s prayers?” the Princess asked, con- 
cisely. 

“Oh, asking God to take care of you, and 
thanking him, — why, just — praying, you 
know.” 


20 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“ Oh, sho ! I can ta’ care of myself. Aunt 
Lizy says she’ll resk me anywheres.” 

“ But nights, when you are asleep, and when 
you are sick or feel bad, and to cure mamma 
and make her well — ” 

“ Can God do all that ? ” the Princess inter- 
rupted. “ I should be kinder sca’t of him. How 
is it you say prayers ? ” 

“ I’ll show you.” The Prince slipped his 
small arm around her sturdy shoulders, and they 
knelt side by side in the white starlight, while 
he murmured to the accompaniment of the 
sighing sea : 

“ Dear Father in heaven, please take care of 
us poor little children, and bless mamma and 
make her well,” — here a little sob came in the 
Prince’s voice, and the Princess, moved uncon- 
sciously by the old, divine instinct that prompts 
the heart to give love for love, nestled closer and 
drew her chubby arm about the Prince, — “ bless 
’Lizabeth’s uncle Eph and aunt Lizy, and the 
Polly , and keep my Fourth o’ July cannon safe 
till I get home, and help us to be good. Amen.” 

Then the Prince, used all his life to good-night 
kisses, pressed his innocent lips to those of the 
Princess, and crept into his bed. 


THE ARRIVAL. 


21 


Poor little Princess ! there were vague stir- 
rings in her breast before she slept. Rich little 
Princess ! to whom came in one night the first 
story of God, the first sweet intuition of human 
love, the first caress of friendship. No wonder 
that the strangeness and mystery of it brought 
her only a vague consciousness of a new warmth 
and comfort, and no wonder that she dreamed 
that night of angels and “ pi-anners ” and the 
Polly apotheosized into a sailboat. 

With the Prince’s kiss began a new era for 
the little Princess. Now, for the first time, 
she knew the joy of companionship. She had 
hitherto accepted all and questioned nothing; 
the Prince, on the contrary, accepted naught and 
questioned all. His eager, imaginative mind, 
formed in an atmosphere of culture and inquiry, 
continually sought the reason of things, reached 
out into the future, and confronted the Princess 
with new and undreamed-of worlds ; and while 
he worked and raced and rowed with her, and 
grew daily brown and healthier and stronger, 
all unconsciously the while he was teaching her 
little fluttering soul to plume its wings and fly. 

There was one rocky headland on the island, 
where, twenty years before, a Norse vessel had 


22 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


been wrecked. The bodies of the crew, washed 
ashore by the morning tide, had been buried on 
the summit of the cliff. Here the Prince loved 
to sit among these unnamed mounds, which, 
somehow, he vaguely associated in his mind 
with vikings and dragon-ships, and wild Norse 
tales of adventure, and weave endless romances 
for the benefit of the listening Princess. 

“ I wonder how all those wives felt when 
the husbands they loved never came back,” the 
Prince said, meditatively, one day. 

“ Do wives gener’ly love their husbands ? ” 
the Princess asked. 

“Why, of course they do,” answered the 
Prince, much shocked at such a question. 

“ What is it to love people, anyway ? ” pur- 
sued the Princess. 

“ Why, when papa loves mamma, there’s a kind 
of a shine in his eyes, and when she’s dressed 
up all beautiful, he puts his arms around her, 
and says, ‘ Darling, how sweet you are ! ’ When 
she was so awful sick, I saw him cry, and put 
his head down on her pillow, and say, ‘ Oh, live 
for me, love ! I can’t live without you.’ ” 

“And do you s’pose all them women went 
around cryin’, and callin’ names like that ? ” 


THE ARRIVAL. 


23 


asked the Princess, awestruck at such un- 
heard-of demonstrations. “ I don’t b’lieve aunt 
Lizy would, — but, p’r’aps she and uncle Eph 
don’t know about lovin’ each other.” 

“I’m glad a Norway pine grew out of this 
one’s heart,” the Prince went on. “ It seems 
more proper.” 

“Why, the’s Norway pines all around here.” 

“Yes, but he came from Norway, so this was 
his home tree, and it’s more like poetry.” 

“What’s poetry?” asked the Princess, who 
in these days was little more than an animated 
interrogation point. 

“Poetry, — why, it’s just poetry,” said the 
Prince. “Didn’t you ever hear ‘’Ratius at the 
Bridge,’ and ‘The Old Major climbed the Belfry 
Tower,’ and those things?” 

“ I don’t know nothin’ about what things 
they be,” the poor Princess answered, anxiously. 
“ Can’t you tell ’em ? ” 

“ I’ll say some,” the Prince said. He was 
sitting upon one of the nameless mounds ; 
there was a soft gray sky overhead, and a 
low, sighing wind was just rising to blend 
with the sighing of the sea. The Prince 
began : 


24 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“ It was the schooner Hesperus , 

That sailed the wintry sea, 

And the skipper had taken his little daughter 
To bear him company.” 

The Princess listened more and more intently, 
as the poem went on. The sea was in it, and 
the wild wind and wintry blast ; all these she 
knew, and the power and pathos that she did 
not know took hold of her, and moved her 
wonderfully. 

“ If uncle Eph had been there/’ she said, “ I 
guess he’d ’a’ known some way so’t she needn’t 
friz to the mast.” 

Many a time after that, during their long 
rambles, or rocking in the little boat upon the 
summer sea, the Prince was called on to go 
through his repertory of poems, and the Prin- 
cess listened, and pondered many things in her 
heart. 

“Where do you keep your Bible, uncle 
Eph ? ” the Prince asked, one stormy Sunday 
evening, when the roaring fire on the cottage 
hearth could not drown the roaring of the angry 
sea without. 

“ I do’ know scurcely ef so be we hev a 
Bible,” uncle Eph replied. “ How is it, wife ? ” 



“ ‘ WHAT’S POETRY ? ’ ASKED THE PRINCESS.” 


























































































































































































THE ARRIVAL. 


27 


“ Wal, I guess we hain’t got a whole Bible,” 
aunt Lizy explained. “ When marm died, the’ 
was five of us gals that all wanted the old 
family Bible, so Huldy, bein’ the oldest, jest 
divided it into five parts, an’ she kep’ the cover 
an’ the book o’ Genesis, an’ give each one o’ the 
rest of us her share, accordin’ to. I’ve alwers 
kep’ mine wropped up, an’ never used it com- 
mon, to kinder remember marm by.” 

“ Wal, wal, the Bible’s a good book for them 
that has time to read,” uncle Eph said, with 
the air of one making a concession, “ an’ prayin’ 
arnswers well enough in its season. Yes,” he 
went on, meditatively, “ I’ve seen times when 
I reely thought prayin’ done good. Naterally, 
when men is well and hearty, an’ able to take 
care o’ themselves, I don’t hold to their hangin’ 
’round the Almighty an’ botherin’ of him, but 
in times o’ trouble when ye can’t do nothin’ 
yerself, it’s well enough to take holt on him. 
’Member one time when I was cap’n o’ the 
Almiry Jane , an’ we was a-cruisin’ off the 
Med’terranean coast, — dretful troublous waters, 
them is, — an’ there came up one o’ them sud- 
dint squalls they has there. Can’t do nothin’ 
at all in them squalls but jest scud under bare 


28 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


poles an’ wait for the vessel to turn bottom eend 
up an’ put a finish into ye. Wal, Elnathan 
Staples, he was a kinder pious feller by streaks, 
an’ he says, ‘Boys,’ he says, ‘I think we’d 
oughter pray’, an’ then he sorter laid it on fust 
one an’ then ’nother of us, and we didn’t nary 
one on us think we was the fittin’ ones to ’tend 
to it ; so then Elnathan gut a leetle huffed, — 
he was pooty tempery — one o’ these red- 
headed fellers thet strikes fire like a match. 
Matches is red-headed, ye know. Wal, Elna- 
than, he says, ‘O God Almighty,’ he says, ‘we 
berseech thee to save the crew o’ this ’ere 
Almiry Jane? he says, ‘not because they’re 
wuth savin’, fer they hain’t, but thou knowest,’ 
he says, ‘ thet men thet hain’t fittin’ to pray 
hain’t fittin’ to die.’ Wal, I guess the Lord 
seen the jestice of it, for the wind quieted ri’ 
down, an’ the Almiry Jane rid into harbor jest 
as quiet an’ peaceful as a bird. Shows ye the 
valoo o’ prayer in its ’propriate season,” uncle 
Eph concluded, piously. 

During the long, quiet evenings uncle Eph 
told many another story of adventure under 
the fire of the Prince’s eager questions, and the 
Prince himself related to his curious listeners 


THE ARRIVAL. 


29 


the daily experience of life in his city home, 
until, gradually, even on her lonely island, the 
influence of the great, throbbing world began 
to press upon the Princess, a world of hurrying 
life, of strange happenings, of wonderful, mys- 
terious interests. 

The wide ocean around her lost its common- 
placeness, and became a highway to fortune, a 
field of peril and adventure, where, far off, in 
mystic, unknown seas, lurked a mighty and 
strange country, a land of occult and dimly 
imagined mystery, known to the initiated by 
the curious title of Yurupnasianafriky. To go 
to that land would be to attain the summit of 
human desire. 

Sometimes, too, aunt Lizy brought out her 
cherished fragment of the family Bible, and the 
Prince read aloud to the little circle the sweet 
old story, so familiar to us, so new to them, of 
the Christ who consorted with fishermen, who 
calmed the troubled waters of Galilee, the 
Christ who loved and died for men. 

“ Fll bate he knew how to tend them nets 
himself,” uncle Eph said, admiringly. 

“What’s the matter, ’Lizabeth?” the Prince 
called through the darkness, one night, alarmed 


30 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


at the unwonted sound of the Princess crying 
in her little bed. 

“ Oh, I didn’t want Jesus to die for me ! ” 
she sobbed. “ I could ’a’ gut along without 
it.” 


CHAPTER II. 


THE DEPARTURE. 

In the beautiful fairy tale there came a day 
when the Princess followed the Prince away 
from the sleeping palace out into the great 
world that waited beyond : 

Across the hills and far away 
Beyond their utmost purple rim, 

Beyond the night, across the day 
The happy princess followed him. 

There came a day, too, when our little Prince 
and Princess went out into the world together, 
but their way thither lay, not across the hills, 
but over the laughing, morning sea. It was 
one of those mornings when all nature seems 
to awake with a smile. The great dome of the 
sky was brilliantly blue, and had a look of 
bending down low as if it were almost within 
reach. There was a laughing riot in the morn- 
3 1 


32 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


ing breeze, and the little waves danced and 
chased each other like children at play. The 
twinkling panes of the distant mainland city 
caught the sunlight, and flashed it forth again 
in gleaming, prismatic hues. 

“Just see how Stimmerport shines this morn- 
ing,” the Prince said. “ Let’s play it is an 
enchanted city, and you and I are going to find 
the old magician who has cast a spell over it, 
and kill him.” 

“ All right,” the Princess answered. “ That’ll 
be a good game. Then I s’pose they’ll take us 
both into the King’s palace and give us gold 
rings and purple dresses and things same’s they 
did in the story you was tellin’ last night, — 
and I shall ask ’em to play on the pi-anner.” 

They were sitting in the Polly , rocking 
idly to and fro on the shallow waters of the 
little cove. Now the Princess took the oars, 
and, with a few vigorous strokes, sent the boat 
out of the sheltered harbor towards the spot 
where those distant lights were gleaming. 
Uncle Eph and aunt Lizy were busy, as usual, 
with their daily toil ; besides, they were too 
much accustomed to seeing the children row 
themselves about in the Polly , sometimes visit- 


THE DEPARTURE. 


33 


ing the nearer islands, sometimes voyaging from 
point to point of their own island kingdom, to 
have noticed so common an occurrence as their 
departure from the little cove. 

It was a morning when all the world seemed 
to be on its travels ; the white sails of little 
yachts shone everywhere ; rowboats were put- 
ting out from the islands which the children 
passed ; the sound of far-off voices and laughter 
came floating over the waters ; out of Summer- 
port harbor came a procession of sloops and 
schooners with sails filling out and creaking in 
the stress of the breeze. Once they ran across 
the course of a great, square-rigged ship, bear- 
ing down on them like some majestic living crea- 
ture, and the Prince and Princess gave hail and 
farewell to the sailors leaning over her bows. 
It was a day and hour not for turning back, but 
for going on forever, following that sunlit track 
which led across the shining bay, straight into 
the heart of the enchanted city. Almost before 
the children knew it, the shore of the mainland 
began to take shape before their eyes. The 
gay awnings of the cottages along the water’s 
edge grew more and more distinct. There 
were flags fluttering here and there on the 


34 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


shore, and bright pennants streaming from the 
yachts lying at anchor. 

Wind and tide were with them now, hurrying 
them on. “ When they reached the lighthouse 
in the outer bay, the lighthouse whose light had 
risen like a star on the Princess’s vision every 
night of her short life, the Prince, with a mighty 
effort of conscience, asked, faintly : 

“ ’Lizabeth, don’t you think we ought to turn 
back now ? ” 

The Princess set her small mouth firmly. 
“ No, I don’t. I ain’t never b’en to the Main 
in my life. And I’m goin’ to see a pi-anner.” 

The float where they fastened the Polly was 
fringed with pretty rowboats, and young men 
and women, sometimes accompanied by groups 
of pretty children, were coming and going on 
the wharf and landing stairs. Some of them 
looked curiously at the red-cheeked, bright- 
eyed little Princess in her coarse, clumsy dress, 
contrasting so strangely with the fashionably 
made clothes of the handsome boy who accom- 
panied her. 

The Princess herself, awed by the closely 
grouped houses of the little city, the vistas of 
the streets, which seemed endless to her unac- 


THE DEPARTURE. 


35 


customed eyes, and the presence of so many 
more people than she had ever dreamed of in 
the seclusion of her island, clung closer to the 



Prince, and slipped her hand in his, yet did not 
for a moment falter in her purpose. 

So, hand in hand, a quaintly mated pair, they 


3 6 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 

left the wharf behind them, and walked slowly 
up the tree-arcaded street, pausing frequently 
to look at the many wonders which the shop 
windows displayed to the Princess’s unaccus- 
tomed eyes. Summerport is a city of trees, 
and sudden, precipitous heights. Trees grow 
everywhere, even in the business streets, shad- 
ing the picturesque-looking stores, where trade 
seems to be at once brisk and leisurely. In the 
heart of the town, rocky hills crowned by cot- 
tages loom steeply above the streets, reached 
by interminable flights of steps. Flower gar- 
dens are on every side, — planted in clumps 
among the rocks, in ordered rows by the way- 
side, in many-colored beds dotting the green 
lawns, the breath of flowers mingling every- 
where with the breath of the sea. 

Notwithstanding the warmth of the day, a 
fresh breeze blowing off the bay tempered the 
air to coolness. It was a breeze that made one 
feel at the same time joyful and hungry, and 
the Prince and Princess, whose breakfast had 
been an early one, and who had made unwonted 
exertions since that meal, began to realize the 
pangs of hunger. 

“ I’ve only got my litflost purse, with fifty 


THE DEPARTURE. 37 

cents in it, so we can’t go to a restaurant,” the 
prince explained, soberly. 

“ What’s a restaurant ? ” the Princess asked, 
thirsting, as usual, for information. 

“A restaurant is a place where they have 
little tables, and you can sit down and eat your 
dinner same’s you could at home, only the table- 
cloth isn’t always as clean as the home one,” 
the candid Prince answered. “ But we haven’t 
got money enough, so we shall have to find a 
baker’s shop, and buy some buns or something. 
A baker is a man who bakes,” forestalling the 
question trembling on the Princess’s tongue. 

“ What’s buns ? ” asked the insatiable Prin- 
cess. 

This question was never answered, because 
at that moment the Prince espied, close by, a 
window where brown-crusted loaves, sheets of 
puffy rolls, jars of cookies, and other master- 
pieces of the baker’s art were temptingly dis- 
played. Still holding the Princess’s hand in a 
close clasp, he opened the door and entered a 
little front room, sweet with the fragrance of 
newly baked bread. The Princess gave a sigh 
of delight as she looked around. Aunt Lizy 
was an excellent cook, but her list of recipes 


38 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


was a limited one, and the Princess had never 
in her life dreamed of so many currant cakes 
and sponge cakes and dainties, for which her 
past experience furnished no name, as were dis- 
played in this delightful room. It was a spot, 
too, where everything shone with cleanliness, 
and a little window, opening on one side, was 
gay with blossoming plants. After waiting a 
few moments vainly for the shopman to appear, 
the Prince led the way to a larger room, opening 
at the back, where tables and chairs and every 
available receptacle were covered with pies of 
all sorts and sizes, baked and unbaked. In the 
midst of this confusion of richness, a frantic- 
looking little man, with a fuzz of red hair, which 
surrounded his forehead like a halo, was skip- 
ping wildly about, endeavoring to count his 
treasures. 

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, — twenty, did 
I say ? I declare to man, I don’ know but it 
ought to ’a’ b’en thirty, — there, now, I’ve lost 
my count again ! I never did see anything so 
pesky as a bakin’ o’ pies for misleadin’ a man. 
Now, I’m goin’ to begin all over at this table 
an’ go right ’round in a circle.” 

At this point the little man caught sight of 


the departure. 39 

the Prince and Princess, and became more fran- 
tic than ever. 

“ Go right out, little boy an’ girl,” he wailed, 
despairingly ; “ I ain’t goin’ to sell you any- 
thing. Can’t you see’t Pm bakin’ pies, an’ 
drove wild with it now ? One, two, three, four, 
five, — there, now, you’ve made me skip the 
corner one ag’in. I’ve b’en since ten o’clock 
countin’ of ’em now. Can’t ye go away ? You 
had your breakfast, I s’pose, an’ children hadn’t 
ought to eat between meals.” 

He turned once more, as if to begin his count- 
ing, but the Prince clutched him resolutely by 
the arm. “ If you please, sir,” he said, “ we’ve 
rowed way over from the island, and we have to 
row back again. We’re so hungry. If you will 
only stop long enough to sell us some buns and 
cakes, we will go away at once and not disturb 
you any more.” 

“ The island, — - what island ? ” the little man 
asked, crossly, as he followed the children into 
the front room. “ If you was on an island, why 
didn’t you have sense enough to stay there ? I 
declare to man, I wish they was all on islands 
till I git my pies baked.” He stopped in the 
midst of counting out the change from the fifty 


40 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


cents which the Prince had given him in pay- 
ment for sundry paper bags of delicacies, to say, 
wildly, “The insane hospital’s what I’m cornin’ 
to with the life I lead ! Now, may I ask what 
you want ? ” 

These last words were addressed to a gentle- 
man who had just entered the door, and who 
now inquired, politely : “You have a restaurant 
up-stairs, have you not ? ” 

“I’ve got a dinin’-room up-stairs,” the little 
man answered, savagely ; “ but if I have, or 
whether I have, I don’ know what business ’tis 
of yours.” 

“ I hope it is some business of yours,” the 
newcomer said, with the air of one determined 
not to notice eccentricities of temper. “ I 
would like to order dinner at one o’clock for a 
party of six, who are coming to Summerport on 
purpose to enjoy your famous cookery.” 

“A party of six!” screamed the little man, 
“ how do you s’pose I’m goin’ to git dinner for 
a party of six, pie-bakin’ day ? I s’pose they’re 
summer folks, too, ain’t they ? ” 

“They are people who are boarding at Oak 
Point,” the gentleman reluctantly admitted. 

“Jest what I thought,” the baker said, tri- 


THE DEPARTURE. 


41 


umphantlyr “ I don’t want nothin’ to do with 
summer folks, anyway. I wish’t they’d all go 
back where they belong, an’ stay there. I’ve 
gut all I c’n do to supply the people that lives 
here the year ’round.” 

“ Why don’t you hire an assistant ? ” the 
gentleman asked. 

“ I never had one yet that warn’t worse’n a 
moth on me. Lazy, wasteful, gadabout cre- 
turs, every one of ’em.” 

“ Why don’t you marry a wife ? ” 

“ Why don’t I make a bigger fool o’ myself’n 
I be now ? Look here, young man, Monday is 
pie-bakin’ day, an’ Mondays I don’t git no din- 
ners for no parties, residents nor boarders. 
An’ I ain’t gut no more time to waste on you.” 

When the little baker dashed into his back 
room again, he found the Prince and Princess 
wandering among the rows of pies. “ Here, 
here ! ” he exclaimed, growing frantic once 
more ; “ I thought you said you’d go away. I 
declare to man, you won’t none of you be satis- 
fied till I’m stark, starin’ crazy.” 

“ I beg your pardon, sir,” the little Prince 
said, calmly. “ I thought you would like to 
know that there are thirty-nine pies.” 


42 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“ Thirty-nine ? Are you sure’t you didn’t 
leave out that big one in the corner, an’ the 
crinkled one under the 



“ I counted them all over twice,” the Prince 
answered, “and there are just thirty-nine.” 

The baker mopped his forehead with his 


THE DEPARTURE. 


43 


handkerchief, and heaved a sigh of relief. “ I 
won’t say but it’s a comfort to git that settled, 
— that is, if you’re sure ? ” The Prince nodded. 
“Well, little girl, what are you mutterin’ to 
yourself ? ” 

“ I was wishin’ aunt Lizy could see’ em,” . 
the Princess said, timidly. 

“What’s the reason aunt What’s-her-name 
ain’t gut pies o’ her own ? ” 

“ She has, sometimes, but she ain’t hardly 
ever gut mince ones,” the Princess said, wist- 
fully. 

“Well, there, now, children,” the little man 
said, “if you’ll keep quiet, an’ not scrimmage 
around an’ git crumbs everywhere, I won’t say 
but what you can set down in the front shop an’ 
eat your luncheon, — and then, for the land’s 
sake, go back to your island. Thirty-nine pies, 
you said ? That’s one for every year sence I 
was born. Next year the’ll be forty.” 

When the Prince and Princess had eaten their 
buns and cakes very quietly, and with great 
enjoyment, the little baker appeared from the 
back room just as they were about to bid him 
good-by, carrying a neatly packed bundle. 
“There,” he said, ‘handing it to the Princess, 


44 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“give that to your aunt, an’ tell her it’ll be 
the best pie she ever e’t. An’ when you git to 
your island, stay there. Don’t stare so, child. 
It won’t cost ye nothin’. It’s a present.” 

“I’ll carry it,” the Prince said, gallantly, 
when they emerged into the street once more, 
but the Princess clung to the precious package. 

“I guess I’d ruther carry it,” she said. 
“ Won’t aunt Lizy be pleased ? ” 

“ I s’pose we’ll go back now ? ” the Prince 
suggested. The Princess set her lips again. 
“ I’m a-goin’ to see a pi-anner,” she said. 

While the Prince was trying to dissuade her 
from her purpose, a tall, slender girl was com- 
ing down the street, a young man in a golf suit 
loitering by her side. She was a girl with curl- 
ing tendrils of fair hair clustering about her 
face, the faintest rose-bloom on her smooth 
cheek, and a sunny smile in her eyes. She was 
dressed all in white, and looked like a dream of 
fair young womanhood. All at once, as she 
walked, she felt a small hand pull at her gown, 
and looked down into the face of a rosy-cheeked 
little girl, with great brown eyes that had a 
wistful look in them. “ Have you gut a pi- 
anner ? ” the childish voice asked. 


THE DEPARTURE. 45 

“A piano?” Anne Seton said. “Why, yes, 
child. Why do you ask ? ” 

“ I live over on uncle Eph’s island,” the Prin- 
cess explained. “ I ain’t never b’en on the Main 
before, an’ I want to see a pi-anner jest awful.” 

The Prince came forward, lifting his small cap 
politely. “ She hates so to go back without see- 
ing a piano,” he said. “ Aunt Lizy told her about 
it, and ever since she has wanted to see one.” 

The young man stood by, looking on with an 
amused air. “ Some more missionary work for 
you, Nan. You were sent to the oppressed and 
afflicted, you know. She’s a wholesome-looking 
little maid, isn’t she ? ” 

The Prince walked on beside Anne Seton, 
gravely answering her questions in regard to 
himself and his companion. George Varick 
took the warm little hand of the Princess in his 
own. “Come, my little lass,” he said, smiling, 
“ I always follow that lady wherever she goes. 
She has led me many a chase over land and sea.” 

Presently they began to climb a steep flight 
of steps leading to a pretty cottage perched on 
a rocky cliff. Patches of gay flowers blossomed 
around it, and flowers and vines grew profusely 
in the long boxes which were fastened to the 


4 6 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


railings of the broad piazzas. There were bright 
awnings, and hammocks hung here and there, 
and a profusion of cushions of every hue were 
lying about, adding to the dazzle of color. From 
the piazza one looked far out over the sea, now 
blue as the dome of heaven itself, the nearer 
islands vivid with mosslike verdure, — on one 
side the purple lines of hills melting into the ho- 
rizon, on the other the limitless stretch of the 
open ocean. The Prince and Princess felt, with- 
out realizing it, the color and charm of all this, 
but it was not the sight of the sea, her familiar 
playmate since childhood, that could make the 
heart of the Princess beat with so wild a pulse, 
as, still pressing the pie to her bosom, she fol- 
lowed George Varick into the pretty, flower- 
scented music-room. Afterwards she dimly 
remembered the pictures on the walls, the light 
and graceful shapes of the furniture, the great 
bowls and vases of flowers setting about every- 
where. Now her eyes were fastened upon the 
beautiful upright piano, which she had instantly 
recognized from the many descriptions which 
the Prince had given her. She looked at the 
silent keys as if some spirit of magic lingered 
there to wake to life at a touch. 


THE DEPARTURE. 


4 7 


Anne Seton loitered a moment to pluck a rose 
from a climbing bush near the door, carelessly 
and without apparent thought placing it in her 
hair. It was a rose of a clear, faint, pink color, 
and it blended with the tender rose-bloom of 
her complexion, and gave the last touch to her 
fair beauty. 

“You dear children,” Anne said, taking the 
Princess’s little hand in her own, “aren’t you 
hungry ? Don’t you want some lunch before I 
play to you?” 

“ Oh,” the Princess answered, with a great 
sigh of impatience, “ we’ve had our noonin’, and 
I want to hear you play music on the pi-anner.” 

The room was shaded from the outdoor glare. 
There were flower scents everywhere, and 
through the open doors and windows came from 
afar the ceaseless thunder of the sea. The 
slender figure at the piano, and the white fingers 
stealing over the keys, wove themselves into a 
dream which made all things a part of itself. 
The little Prince listening eagerly in his dim 
corner, George Varick leaning a little forward, 
looking at the musician through the shading 
fingers of the hand above his eyes, the Princess 
in her small chair, clasping the pie to her throb- 


48 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


bing breast, — all were part and parcel of the 
dream that stole over them like a mist from the 
sea. What was real among them was the carol 
of the birds rising from their nests in the purple 
of the dawn, clearing the ether in their flight, 
and pouring out notes that died away in the far 
clearness of the sky. Then came the dash and 
gurgle and drip of water, the very song of the 
little island runlet that the Princess knew so 
well ; and now the rose-leaves were falling in 
the garden and the breeze was beginning to rise 
in the pine-tree tops, and, afar off, voices were 
singing, ay, singing to break one’s heart. 

“ Don’t, Nan ! ” George Varick said, and for 
a moment the music paused. 

The Princess whispered, very, very softly : 
“ Is this heaven?” 

“No,” Mr. Varick said, speaking low; “this 
isn’t heaven, but I’ve been mighty near heaven 
here sometimes.” 

“ But she’s an angel, ain’t she ? ” 

“ Oh, well, — she’s an angel all right, — an 
angel with just enough of the leaven of human- 
ity to keep her from flying away. I’ve heard 
her wings rustle, though,” the young man said, 
more to himself than to the Princess. 




•• *■ 

■ 







































































THE DEPARTURE. 


51 


But now the heart of the Princess thrilled 
once more, for over the face of the waters came 
a voice, the voice that the heart has waited for 
always, and faintly, and in vibrating tones that 
the ear vainly strove to interpret, it told the 
secret that holds in itself the whole meaning of 
life. There were tears in the secret, and love 
and longing and triumph in it ; there was strug- 
gle and despair and joy, and the very wildness 
of glory ; and still, like an undertone running 
through all, sounded the ceaseless drip, drip, 
drip of water falling from living fountains that 
played in the sun. 

The little Princess did not know that she 
felt all this, — she was hardly conscious that 
her breath was coming fast, and that her poor 
little heart was bursting, so lost was she in the 
dream that held them all in its spell, and which 
even George Varick could only vaguely inter- 
pret ; but when, presently, the strain hesitated, 
then jangled harshly, and at last ended with a 
shower of silvery notes like sweetest laughter, 
the Princess gave a great sob that almost rent 
the precious pie in twain, and gasped, convul- 
sively, “ Oh, there must be lots an’ lots of 
pi-anners in heaven ! ” 


52 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


It was just at this moment that the door-bell 
rang, and a bevy of young girls in light sum- 
mer dresses came in, and began to flutter here 
and there, and chirp like a flock of pretty birds. 
In the momentary confusion the little Prince 
and Princess stole shyly away. “ Please tell 
the young lady,” the Prince said, earnestly, 
“ that it was so beautiful, and we shall never 
forget it. She must be very happy to know 
how to make music like that.” 

“ Where are you going now, children ? ” the 
young man asked, holding a hand of each in a 
gentle clasp. 

“ Oh, we came in the boat, and we are going 
back the same way,” the Prince said. 

The young man stood for a moment watch- 
ing them, as, two quaint little pilgrims, hand in 
hand they disappeared down the quiet street. 
“ I didn’t know any of the steamers touched at 
these islands,” he said, vaguely. “ Perhaps I 
ought to have seen them safely off.” Then, as 
one scarce knowing what he did, he strolled 
into the garden, and, throwing himself on the 
ground, looked long, long, at the sea, — for 
the spell of the music was upon him still. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE RETURN. 

“ Oh, to what uses shall we put the wildwood flower that 
simply blows ? 

And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the 
rose ? ” 


The Prince and Princess were very silent as 
they walked to the wharf where they had left 
the Polly. It was not until they were once 
more afloat, and had steered their way safely 
through the small craft in the inner harbor, 
that the cool breath of the sea on their faces 
seemed to bring them back to every-day life 
again. Even then, their thoughts were still 
with the music and the emotions it had awakened. 

“There was one time when she was playing,” 
the Prince said, confidentially, “when I truly 
thought I saw mamma kneeling in the moon- 
light with her long white dress on, just as I’ve 
seen her lots of times, when she’s asking God 
to take care of papa and me.” 

53 


54 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“ I heard that bird that sings in the tallest 
pine-tree, where the sailors are buried,” the 
Princess answered ; “ the one that sings kinder 
sweet and solemn, you know, — and it was 
tryin’ to tell me something. Then there was 
that little brook that runs down Signal Hill, — 
you heard that, I s’pose ? ” 

Soon, however, the necessity for constant 
exertion made them forget everything else. 
The sky was growing gray, now, a soft brood- 
ing gray, that settled over the whole landscape. 
The wind was against them, and their arms 
were already tired with the labors of the morn- 
ing. It had been easy enough to find their 
way from the island to the mainland, but they 
presently realized that it was much more diffi- 
cult to retrace their course. There were so 
many islands, and, to the untrained eyes of the 
Prince and Princess, they differed from each 
other very little except in size. They lost time 
in rowing hither and thither, fancying they 
recognized familiar landmarks, which on nearer 
view disappointed them. At last the Princess, 
with her usual vigor of action, resolved on a 
decisive step. 

“ I’m goin’ to land on this island, anyway,” 


THE RETURN. 


55 


she said. “The’s a little beach there, where 
we can land, and pull the boat way up so’st the 
tide can’t reach it. And we’ll go to that house 
over in the field, and ask ’em where we be.” 

From the pebbly beach, a narrow footpath 
bordered with fringing grass and wild flowers 
led to the door of a long, low, brown cottage, 
facing a semicircular cove. Behind the house 
there was a garden where vegetables grew in 
trim rows. In a sheltered angle, roses bloomed 
in profusion, the old-fashioned single rose with 
its vivid red blossoms, and small white roses 
that starred the dark green of the foliage with 
their profuse bloom. There were flower bor- 
ders at the ends of the house, and the path to 
the side door which the children approached 
lay through rows of pinks and pansies and gay- 
blooming nasturtiums. The door stood invit- 
ingly open into a small, square entry, and the 
children lingered for a moment on the honey- 
suckle-shaded step, listening for some sign of 
life or movement within. Presently the Prince 
knocked timidly, and then again with more 
boldness, but all remained hushed and still, 
with no answering voice or step. After a few 
minutes of waiting, the children stepped into 


56 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


the little entry, and stood in the open doorway, 
which led into a good-sized front room, awed 
and bewildered at what they saw. It was a 
poor enough room in its ordinary state, this 
humble cottage parlor, but to-day some tender 
hand had touched it, and transformed it into a 
shrine of sacredness and beauty. The roughly 
plastered walls were whitewashed to brilliant 
whiteness, there was a cheap white matting on 
the floor, and spotless muslin curtains fluttered 
at the open windows. Two old-fashioned easy 
chairs were draped in the white dimity covers 
which our grandmothers used to delight in, and 
a sheet had been carefully folded to hide the 
gay chintz cover of the lounge. There was 
only one picture on the wall, a print of Jesus 
blessing little children, but the simple frame of 
stained wood had been hidden in wreathing 
white flowers. There were white flowers every- 
where, great bunches of white peonies, clusters 
of phlox and sweet-williams, the spicy sweet- 
ness of white pinks, and white roses massed in 
profusion, breathing their incense upon the air. 

The heart and centre of all this whiteness 
was the low, white-draped table in the middle 
of the room, where a baby’s coffin rested, the 






“THE PRINCE KNOCKED TIMIDLY.” 
























































. 

























































































































• • 





THE RETURN. 


59 


coffin in which the baby lay hushed into such 
deep, such endless sleep. It was a round and 
chubby baby, and it lay turned a little as if in 
natural repose, the waxen cheek resting upon 
the dimpled hand. There were little rings of 
soft, fair hair clustering around the brow, and 
the dark eyelashes lay, oh, so quiet upon the 
roundness of the cheek. Yet there was no 
sign of illness except the shadowy traces of 
pathetic circles around the eyes. It seemed 
that at any moment the baby might awake, 
might stir the sculptured baby hands one 
longed to kiss, and throw off the coverlet of 
white roses that had been woven so fair around 
the tiny form. 

Step by step the children had drawn nearer, 
till they stood at the coffin side. To the little 
Princess, living her narrow life upon her lonely 
island, death had been almost less than a name. 
She knew nothing but life, — the full, material 
life of nature and of man. She could not tell 
why her heart beat fast, or why this sleeping 
baby awed her so. 

“ What makes it so awful sound asleep ? ” she 
whispered, scarcely above her breath. 

“Oh, ’Lizabeth!” the Prince said, with a 


6o 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


sob in his throat, “ it isn’t asleep, — it’s dead. 
Don’t you see the baby’s dead?” Yet his 
words brought little meaning to her dulled con- 
sciousness. What is it, then, to be dead, — to 
lie in the full semblance of life, with dreams 
shut under the closed eyelids, with that sweet 
look of rest upon the hushed face ? 

Slowly, as one scarce knowing what she did, 
the Princess stretched out her hand, and laid it 
just a second’s breath upon the baby’s face, 
and the marble coldness of it smote her to the 
heart. Bursting into convulsive weeping, she 
flung herself upon the Prince : “ Oh, don’t let 
it be dead ! ” she sobbed. “ It’s freezin’ all up. 
Oh, I didn’t know dyin’ was like that ! ” 

The Prince smoothed the dark head against 
his shoulder tenderly. Sometimes it is hard to 
be a man and a protector when there is such a 
lump in one’s own throat. 

“ Hush, dear ! ” he said, gently. “ It was a 
dear, dear baby,” and here he choked a little in 
his manful attempt at comfort, “ but it has gone 
to Jesus. Everybody that has gone to heaven 
is warm and happy and comforted. Maybe 
Jesus is singing it to sleep this minute.” 

It was a simple child’s speech, but it brought 


THE RETURN. 


6l 

a balm to another hearer besides the Princess, 
for the baby’s father and mother had entered 
the room unperceived while the children were 
talking, and, for the first time since the baby 
had been folded away into his dreamless sleep, 
the slender, dark-eyed young mother burst into 
tears. Oh, little, little, tender child, whom no 
mother will ever again rock to rest when the 
twilight shuts down over the murmuring sea, is 
it true that across the dark waters of death the 
loving arms of Jesus waited for you ? The 
lump of ice in the mother’s breast melted, and 
the bronzed, stalwart husband held her tenderly, 
and soothed her sobs with the healing magic of 
love. 

The Prince and Princess stole out of the 
house as unobserved as they came. As they 
looked around, hardly knowing where to go, 
they saw that across the gray sea, from the 
nearer islands, and from the mainland, boats 
were coming towards the little cove. It was a 
still afternoon. The water lapped softly against 
the shore, and gurgled against the oars of the 
boats as they drew near. Presently the new- 
comers began to land and gather at the house, — 
plain, primitive folk, in simple garb, and bearing 


62 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


themselves stiffly with the unwonted solemnity 
of the occasion ; but when they entered the low 
cottage room, and saw the baby lying there amid 
the whiteness, tears shone on many a weather- 
beaten cheek. So many fathers and mothers 
have known what it is to have the little, clinging 
arms drop away, and the hush of eternal silence 
fall on the sealed lips ! 

One of the boats from the mainland brought 
the minister, a gray-haired, worn-looking man 
in threadbare black, but with a great kindliness 
in his face. And then, through the open win- 
dow, came the sound of a voice reading the 
sweet old story of Christ and the little children, 
and the solemn tones of prayer. 

Then, softly and tenderly, they bore the little 
coffin through the open cottage door, along the 
grassy slopes of the meadow to the spot where 
a tiny grave had been hollowed, — so short, so 
narrow, to shut away so much of springing 
hope ; and when they had lowered the baby 
to his resting-place, and showered upon the 
coffin-lid the white blossoms that wrapped him 
in a coverlet of snow, while amidst the sobs 
of those that mourned the clods fell and shut 
the flowers from sight, there came a sound over 


THE RETURN. 


63 


the face of the deep as if some hand smote the 
great harp of the sea with a solemn and vibrat- 
ing note. 

Quiet and silent, the Prince and Princess had 
seen and heard it all. It was like a pageant 
that passed before them, not like a scene in 
which they had a part. When the funeral was 
over, the neighbor-folks lingered a little to gos- 
sip together. Their opportunities for meeting 
were so few, and so few excitements came into 
their lives except the ever threatening tragedies 
of the sea. 

“It was tasty, warn’t it, the way ’Melia’d 
fixed that room up ? ” one woman said to 
another. “ She always was a master-hand to 
kinder trim things.” 

“ I don’ know, hardly, what she’s goin’ to 
do,” the next speaker said, pityingly. “ She 
sot so by that baby.” 

“ Almiry’s goin’ to stay with her for a spell, 
— you know Ezry won’t be home for quite a 
period yet, — an’ then ’Lezur’s goin’ to hang 
’round home all he can, till ’Melia gits kinder 
wonted to her loss. Well, she’s gut a good 
home.” 

“Yes, but that ain’t everything. I know 


6 4 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


what ’tis to have an island all to yerself, by my 
sojourn over on Pine Island when me an’ John 
lived there a year, once. Sometimes I’d git so 
hungry to speak with a livin’ cretur, that the 
sound o’ the clock tickin’ so stiddy and oncon- 
sarned a’most drove me wild. Once I hove her 
out o’ the winder, I gut so wrought up. I was 
’shamed enough after I done it, but ’t didn’t 
hurt her any. She jest kep’ on a-tickin’.” 

The Prince and Princess loitered timidly here 
and there, hoping to attract attention from some 
one of the groups and seek advice concerning 
their homeward voyage ; but though one or two 
people noticed them curiously, and wondered 
“ what them children was hangin’ ’round for,” 
nobody addressed them, and a curiously forlorn 
feeling of being outside the pale of everybody’s 
interest kept them from intruding themselves. 
Once they almost gained courage to inquire of 
a cluster of women who looked at them, pleas- 
antly, but, when they drew near, the attention 
of the group was engrossed in the contempla- 
tion of a fleshy young woman who stood near, 
accompanied by an awkward-looking man evi- 
dently her husband. 

“ Hain’t Ariadne stylish ? ” one of the women 


THE RETURN. 65 

asked, admiringly, of the others, as the children 
approached. 

“ She makes out to be,” was the hearty reply. 

“I never see anything like the way Jim 
sets by her. She jest expressed a wish for 
a plaid dress, an’ he went over to Summer- 
port, ’thout a word said, and fetched her that 
one she’s gut on. It’s lovely, I think.” 

The children looked dubiously at the stylish 
Ariadne, over whose stout person plaids of the 
very largest pattern were diverging wildly in 
every direction. 

“ Look ! ” said one of the women, nudging 
another in joy at the spectacle of such devo- 
tion, “he’s carryin’ her umbrell’ ! ” 

One by one, the little groups were melting 
away. Some of the rowboats were already 
mere black dots in the distance, and the Prince 
and Princess in their turn took their way to 
the spot where the Polly waited, just above the 
line of the turning tide. 

“ We won’t stay to bother the baby’s folks,” 
the Prince said, simply. 

During all that had passed, the Princess had 
held fast to the pie as to an anchor. “We 
won’t eat it, unless we’re starvin’,” she now 


66 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


said, wistfully, “ because it’ll please aunt Lizy 
so, if we ever git home to give it to her.” 

“ Do you see that island with only one house 
on it, ’Lizabeth ? ” the Prince asked. “ I think 
that’s uncle Eph’s island. The hill behind the 
house looks like Signal Hill, don’t you think so ? 
There’s a little pale moon in the sky now, and 
when the sun has really set, it’ll be bright 
moonlight. I think we had better try to get 
home.” 

So once more the Polly was launched, this 
time upon a sunset sea, — a pale sunset, just 
tinging the gray with gold. At first, as the 
dusk of the twilight shut down over the waters, 
they lost sight of the little house which was the 
goal of their hopes, and could only vaguely cal- 
culate the direction in which to steer their 
course. But, after a time, the star of the even- 
ing lamp shone in the distant cottage window 
to guide the weary little mariners on their way. 
Then, when the dying light of day had faded 
from the west, the moon that had been such a 
pale phantom in the su-nset sky rose high in 
the heavens, serene and silver-clear, and flooded 
the wide waste of the sea with the white dazzle 
of moonlight. The children were not so lonely 


THE RETURN. 


67 


now, for far-away sounds came to them across 
the waters, — the echo of sailors’ voices on dis- 
tant ships, faint vibrating notes of laughter 
from merry sailing parties in the bay, — but 
their poor little arms were weary from the long 
strain at the oars, and they only spoke now and 
then to cheer each other, or to mark the dis- 
tance which still intervened between them and 
the friendly light. 

A little to one side of the course they were 
steering, a black rock rose sharply from the dark 
water that swirled around it, but the Prince 
and Princess, straining their eyes for the gleam 
of the signal lamp, did not see the white 
line of foam that marked the long reef, of which 
the rock was a part, covered now with a shal- 
low depth of water, for the tide was almost at 
the full. All in a moment it happened ; out of 
the gray quietness of the sea came a swift, 
furious, resistless wave that seized the Polly , 
bore it against the black, yawning rocks that 
uncovered their sharp teeth to meet it and 
grind it to fragments, and breathless, panting, 
scarce knowing what had befallen them, the 
children found themselves clinging to the jag- 
ged projections of the slippery ledge which yet 


68 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


remained uncovered by the tide. By some 
strange chance, when the Polly went from 
under them, the force of the wave had cast 
them upon the only refuge which remained 
to them in the cruel waste of the sea. 

It was only by a supreme effort that the 
Princess succeeded in drawing the exhausted 
Prince far enough on to the rock to shield him 
from the fierce wash of the tide. He had not 
her sturdy training, and his arms had grown 
nerveless and weak. A cleft in the rock at the 
same time served as a projection to cling to, and 
a defence against the rush of the waves. There 
was just room for the children to draw close 
together, awed and trembling with fear of the 
moment when those dark waters might rise 
higher still and sweep them into the awful deeps 
below. 

Presently, when a fuller consciousness began 
to come back to her, the Princess whispered, in 
a momentary hush of the tumult of waters, 
“ Don’t you think we’d ought to say our 
prayers ? ” 

They were too frightened and confused to 
frame any new petitions, and the only words 
which seemed to come to their wearied remem- 


THE RETURN. 


69 


brance were those of the old, familiar prayer of 
childhood. So, nestling closer together, cling- 
ing with bleeding hands to the sharp teeth of 
the ledge, they raised their childish voices, amid 
the fierce murmur of the hungry tides that 
clamored to seize and tear them, in that same 
oft-repeated prayer which many a child had said 
that night, kneeling in quiet homes at mothers’ 
knees : “ Now I lay me down to sleep.” 

The Prince’s tired head sank on the Princess’s 
shoulder. “ There’s — something — about — 
Our Father, — isn’t there ? ” he said, faintly; 
then he knew no more. 

The Princess struggled hard against the tor- 
por that was stealing over her. The waves that 
broke over her feet seemed to be rocking her 
into slumber. Vaguely, in the dimness of her 
mind came the thought of the dead baby that 
had gone to Jesus, and then all the snarling 
tongues of the sea seemed to turn themselves 
into music, and to be singing over and over, oh, 
so sweetly : 

“ Jesus is rock-ing me to sleep, 

Jesus is rock-ing me to sleep.” 

It always seemed to her afterwards that when 


70 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


she woke in uncle Eph’s boat, with aunt Lizy’s 
face anxiously bending over her, she came out 
of the profoundest depths of unconsciousness. 



So how could it have been her voice, as uncle 
Eph said it was, that guided him to find and 
rescue them ? 

When she dimly recognized aunt Lizy look- 


THE RETURN. 


71 


ing very white in the moonlight, and felt the 
reviving touch of her warm hands upon her fore- 
head, the Princess said, sleepily, “I’m awful — 
sorry — I couldn’t ’a’ saved the — pie. For 
Jesus’ sake — Amen,” and then dropped off 
into unconsciousness again. 

The story of the Prince and Princess, which 
came very near ending with their first voyage 
into the world together, is not ended yet. The 
little dead baby had gone forth alone into that 
unknown mystery from which no hand has ever 
lifted the shrouding curtain, but the young boy 
and girl came back into the warm, every-day 
shelter of the world of this life, — and, per- 
chance, to those who remained as to him who 
went, the halting words of the Princess, dimly 
struggling back to mortal breath, held the true 
solution of the mystery, — “for Jesus sake!” 
The one shall be taken, and the other left, and 
death, no less than life, is of God. 

When the Prince went away, in the early 
autumn, healthy, and bronzed, and broadened, 
the work of the awakening of the Princess was 
accomplished. Dimly, as a child may compre- 
hend them, the meanings of life were dawning 
in her soul, the meanings that make joy sweeter, 


72 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


and sorrow keener, and have power to expand 
the boundaries even of a lonely island, until they 
touch the whole limitless horizon of thought. 

There came a day, too, when she went away 
to the mainland to school, and the life of the 
throbbing world became to her something more 
than a name. At first, in her new surroundings, 
she was like a wild sea-bird shut in a cage, but 
gradually the quiet influence of the pleasant 
home where she was placed, and the craving of 
her own awakened mind for knowledge, made 
her content. 

In the summers she lived the same free life 
on her green island, and she grew up a comely, 
vigorous maiden, with a rich color in her rounded 
cheeks, a clear light in her wide, brown eyes, 
and lengths of jet black tresses luxuriant as 
those of the Sleeping Beauty of the old legend. 

For the first year or two after the Prince’s 
departure from the island a childish corre- 
spondence was kept up between himself and 
the Princess, but gradually, with the lapse of 
time and the weakening of old associations, 
the letters became more infrequent, and then 
ceased altogether. 

The Prince remembered the Princess only 


THE RETURN. 


73 


as a red-cheeked, sturdy little island girl, whose 
energetic companionship during one childhood 
summer had helped to deepen all the springs 
of his physical being, and to lay the foundation 
for a healthy and stalwart manhood. What she 
had done for his mind and spirit he knew not, 
because he had not yet grown to the realization 
of the truth that there are some gifts which 
enrich the giver, no less than the receiver. 

The Princess, in her new life, with the 
widening of all life’s horizons, thought of the 
Prince as of one who had first brought her 
the key to an undreamed-of and illimitable 
world, and she sometimes wondered how it 
had fared with him, what new wisdom the 
years had taught him, what the cultivation and 
the luxury and the subtle social influences of 
this great world had done for his manhood. 
Out of what he had done for her grew the 
one ambition of her life, — that of becoming 
a teacher for other girls brought up like her- 
self, on lonely islands, carrying to them the 
message which she had herself received, of a 
larger life and a deeper significance in all its 
meanings. 


CHAPTER IV. 


l’envoi. 

“ For love, in sequel, works with fate.” 

There was a laughing wind stirring the 
summer air that swept all the tall swaying 
grasses till they rustled softly like an under- 
tone of the breeze. It brought out the spicy, 
pungent odors of the sweet bay bushes, and the 
breath of myriads of brier roses, so tender and 
delicate that the fragrance stole through the 
air like a dream of perfume. 

The little curling waves ran up the beach 
and jostled each other and lapped and gurgled 
in very buoyancy of glee, so that the tall, 
blooming young woman who watched them 
stamped her pretty foot at the wantonness of 
their sport, and exclaimed, indignantly : 

“ I declare, you are fairly giggling at me, 
now that you’ve put me in this dilemma ! 

74 


l’envoi. 


75 

There is certainly something uncanny about 
this island.” 

She was a slender, yet vigorous-looking 
maiden, with an affluence of color which is 
rarely a product of the New England climate, 
and she wore her simple serge gown with an 
air of distinction. She was looking, with eyes 
that sparkled with vexation, at a pretty row- 
boat which had evidently been carried away by 
the tide, and had now lodged among the rocks 
bordering a tiny island only a few rods distant. 
The boat was still near enough so that one 
might read the gilt letters which ran like a 
frieze around the stern, and decipher the name 
“ Elizabeth Eaton,” but the channel between 
the two islands was both deep and dangerous, 
and Elizabeth Eaton on the shore sat down 
upon a convenient rock and looked in despair 
at her namesake in the distance bobbing up 
and down placidly with the tide. 

“It isn’t the least comfort in the world,” 
she soliloquized, “to remember that it is all 
my own fault. Why did I go mooning around, 
sentimentalizing and maundering poetry, and 
forgetting that the tide was coming in ? And 
why, when I came ashore on this unlucky 


j6 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 

island, didn’t I remember that I was inevitably 
going to forget, and pull that boat up where it 
would be safe ? ” Then turning suddenly to a 
bird who was pouring his heart out in a gush 
of melody from a neighboring bush, she said, 
with energy, “You’re a spiteful little thing!” 

Presently she rose from her seat and looked 
with searching glance over the sunny island 
meadows and the wide blue sea lying beyond ; 
but the land was silent and deserted, and the 
white sails flecking the ocean here and there 
were distant specks in the broad expanse of 
blue. It was the same island where she had 
landed with the Prince on that childhood day 
when she had made her first journey into the 
great world, and, half involuntarily, her feet be- 
gan to follow the narrow footpath through the 
meadows, which led to the old brown cottage 
on the farther shore. The house was deserted 
now, and falling into decay. She had already 
visited it once that day and looked into the 
curtainless windows of the room where the 
baby had lain in his frozen sleep. The rose- 
bushes had grown wild and straggling, but she 
had gathered a bunch of vivid crimson blooms 
to wear at her belt. Now, in her perplexity, 


l’envoi. 


77 


she turned to the place where human inhabi- 
tants had once lived, as though to find some 
assistance in the mere association. 

She sat down on the sun-warmed doorstone 
of that side door where the honeysuckle still 
waved its long pennons in the breeze, and saw 
that a path, oft trodden, led through the or- 
chard to the baby’s grave. On that former 
day she remembered that when the rude pro- 
cession took its way from the house, the feet 
of those who followed the little coffin to its 
resting-place had bent down the springing 
grasses as they walked. Following a sudden 
impulse, she heaped her arms with starry sprays 
of the white rose, and sought the spot where 
she had first seen death shut away into the 
heart of life. There was another, larger mound 
now beside the smaller one, a mound unmarked 
except by a swaying white rose-bush which had 
been planted at its head. Both had been neg- 
lected by man, but nature had spread her soft 
mosses over them, and tangling grasses grew 
there, and wild flowers bent over and shed 
their perfume like balm. Every now and then 
the loosening petals of the rose-leaves dropped 
their snow among the grasses, and close by was 


78 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


heard the solemn sound of the sea, as if it went 
on forever, singing of immortality. Elizabeth 
knelt beside the lonely mounds lying so tran- 
quil in the sun, and, as she softly laid the rose 
sprays on their mossy surface, she began chant- 



ing slowly to herself the song which to her 
imagination the sea seemed to be singing over 
and over : 

“ When the last trump shall sound, 

And the dead, both small and great, 

Shall rise — shall rise — ” 


l’envoi. 


79 


Just beyond the spot where she was kneel- 
ing, there rose a knoll, covered with scattered 
pine-trees, and as she turned to look in that 
direction, she made a discovery which brought 
her song to a sudden termination. On the 
smooth slope behind the nearest tree reposed 
a pair of stout legs encased in heather-mixture 
stockings, and, as she rose to her feet and crept 
nearer to this astonishing sight, she saw that 
these stalwart limbs belonged to a young man, 
who had lain down, book in hand, under the 
shadow of the pines, and, lulled by the breeze 
and the sea, had fallen into deepest slumber. 
His face was turned away from her, but she 
could see a mass of brown hair curling in those 
close waves one sees in Greek statues, a pair 
of broad shoulders, and an outstretched hand, 
strong yet fine, from which the book had 
fallen. 

From the point where she stood she now saw 
a small boat, like a yacht’s tender, moored at a 
crumbling wharf near the cottage. 

“ Behold, a deliverer ! ” she murmured, dra- 
matically, to herself, then, with a woman’s 
involuntary instinct, began to pull the bits of 
clinging grass from her gown, and put her 


8o 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


hand to the close braids of her hair, to feel if 
the shining mass was yet smooth and compact. 

Next she began to realize that there was 
embarrassment in the situation. She smiled 
mischievously. “ Shall I watch him from afar, 
and rush to pounce upon him when he wakes,” 
she mused, “or shall I sit here and discover 
myself to his astonished sight, as a new Mi- 
randa waiting for Ferdinand to materialize?” 

The sleeper lay prone and immovable, and, 
moved by curiosity, Elizabeth crept a little 
nearer. “ What thick soles they wear on their 
shoes,” she thought. “Those things would be 
hideous on any one but a man. I wonder where 
he came from. I can’t see anything that looks 
like a yacht nearer than Summerport harbor. 
How tranquilly he lies there, unconscious of 
his doom, — and I wait here like the Ancient 
Mariner : ‘ I know the man that must hear me.’ 
Why doesn’t he wake up, — stupid creature ! ” 

Then, seized with a sudden panic at the mere 
thought of his waking and finding her so near 
to him, she rose and gathered up her draperies 
as a bird plumes itself for flight. In the very 
moment of flying, however, she hesitated. “I 
might have the book,” she said. “He is so 


l’envoi. 


8 1 


sound asleep he would never know it. I may 
have to wait an hour.” 

Cautiously she drew nearer. It seemed to 
her that in his sleep this young man must hear 
her heart beat. Her hand was almost on the 
book, when she checked herself in another 
panic, but even at that supreme moment she 
noticed that his brows and curling lashes were 
much darker than his hair, and that the moist 
rings lying upon his broad forehead gave a boy- 
ish look to the repose of his face. 

“ He is like a shut book,” she thought, clutch- 
ing her breast as if to still her heart-beats. “ I 
wonder what color his eyes are.” 

At this moment the object of her curiosity 
opened his eyes, and by that act alone might 
have resolved some of her questionings had she 
but retained sufficient presence of mind to look 
at him. She longed to fly, but her strength 
seemed to have deserted her. She could only 
sit with her eyes riveted on the ground, and a 
more wonderful crimson rising in her cheeks 
than that of the roses at her belt. The young 
man looked at her incredulously. He closed 
his eyes again, then opened them, looked sol- 
emnly at Elizabeth, as at a vision, and said, in a 


82 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


dreamy voice, “ It does not move. I saw it in 
a dream, and now it appears to be real.” 

The vision now changed the situation a little 
by putting its hands over its face, with an effect 
as if the bloom of roses was suddenly obscured. 

“ Don’t ! ” the half-awakened sleeper pleaded. 
Then sitting up with an effort, he put on his 
glasses and surveyed the young woman before 
him with the serious air of one resolved to 
know the truth. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, after a moment. 
“ I see that if I am awake, you are real. I am 
awake, am I not ? ” 

Elizabeth removed her hands from her face 
for a moment’s space. “Yes,” she said, indig- 
nantly, “you are awake, — but if you had had 
any real gentlemanly feeling, you would have 
stayed asleep five minutes longer.” 

A moment later, as the young man remained 
persistently silent, she saw from behind her 
screening fingers that he was struggling with a 
wild desire to laugh, and with one of the quick 
transitions which were a part of her charm, she 
burst into a ripple of merriment at the sight of 
his embarrassed face. 

With the laugh the awkwardness of the posi- 


l’envoi. 


83 


tion melted away. It is always easy for two 
young creatures to break down barriers ^vhich 
are purely conventional. 

“ I was trying to get the book without wak- 
ing you,” she explained. “ I had to wait till 
you woke because I couldn’t get off the island 
without your help, and you seemed so awfully 
sound asleep.” 

“ I acknowledge,” he said, humbly, “ that a 
man ought to know when to wake up. It’s 
odd, too, I was dreaming, you know, that I saw 
a rose-bush spring up from the ground, just a 
little shoot at first, and then it grew tall and 
slender, and blossomed all over with crimson 
roses like those you have in your belt, — and 
all in a moment, while I was looking at it, it 
changed into a beautiful girl, with cheeks redder 
than any rose. When I opened my eyes, and 
saw you, you know, I couldn’t tell whether you 
were a dream or a reality, and I had an ag- 
grieved sense that it was going to be a pretty 
mean thing if you faded away.” 

Elizabeth rose to her feet suddenly. “ I 
must tell you,” she said, “my summer home is 
on that island where you see a house, — there, 
in the distance, in the direction of the light- 


8 4 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


house. I rowed over here this morning, and 
landed, intending to stay only a short time, and 
so I did not pull my boat far enough up the 
beach to ensure its not being carried off at high 
tide. I had been on this island once before, 
years ago, on the day when the baby, whose 
grave you see just below there, was buried. 
For some reasons it was a memorable day in 
my life. I wandered over here this morning, 
and visited the deserted house and the baby’s 
grave, and I found some orchids in the swamp 
of a kind I had never seen before ; and then I 
sat down in the tall grass on the edge of that 
cliff, and thought about it all, — all the chances 
and changes of life, and that sort of thing, — and 
quoted poetry, and made plans for the future ; 
and, while I mused, the tide rose. Now my boat 
is caught among the rocks on Gull Island, and 
if you will not help me, I shall be forced to 
become a female Robinson Crusoe.” 

The young man had risen and stood beside 
her. “ I wish I knew what poetry you quoted,” 
he said, irrelevantly. 

“It was nothing, — just fragments that came 
back to me through old association with these 
seashore places, and then : 


l’envoi. 


85 


“ A-floating, a-floating 
Across the sleeping sea, 

All night I heard a singing bird 
Upon the topmost tree. 

Oh, sing, and wake the dawning, 

Oh, whistle for the wind ; 

The night is long, the current strong, 
My boat it lags behind. 


It wasn’t particularly appropriate, you see, be- 
cause, after all, my boat was up and doing, and 
I was the laggard. Don’t you think, though, 
that this is a time rather for action than for 
poetry ? ” 

The young man led the way down the slope 
and stood for a moment, cap in hand, beside 
the baby’s grave. The wind ruffled the masses 
of waving hair upon his bared head. He looked 
at Elizabeth reflectively. “ Do you find in your 
mind a curious impression that you and I have 
stood side by side at this same place on a for- 
mer occasion ? ” he asked. 

“ Certainly not,” Elizabeth replied, with de- 
cision. “ There is not the slightest impression 
in my mind that I ever stood anywhere with 
you until five minutes ago.” 

The boat was unmoored and they pushed off 


86 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


from the wharf. “ You will have to row around 
the island through the south channel,” Eliza- 
beth told her companion. “ My boat is caught 
between the rocks just opposite the landing 
beach on that side. Shall I take an oar?” 

The young man smiled. "It will hardly be 
necessary. I have rowed now and then on the 
Varsity crew, and I fancy my muscles will stand 
the strain of the present occasion, especially if 
you will allow me to go easy for a few moments 
while I tell you something.” 

“ Why shouldn’t I allow you to manage your 
own boat in your own way ? ” Elizabeth asked, 
a little haughtily. 

“Well, you impress me as rather an ener- 
getic person, with small sympathy for any 
laggards except those who sit on cliffs and 
recite poetry. What I was going to say was 
this : like yourself, I have been on this island 
once before, on the day when the baby whose 
grave we saw was buried. It was a memorable 
day to me, also. I was only a youngster, then, 
and was spending the summer on one of the 
islands in this bay. On that day I had accom- 
panied my little playmate — she was a rosy- 
cheeked child, and you have an odd, haunting 


l’envoi. 


87 


look now and then, that recalls her — on the 
first trip to the mainland which she had ever 
made in all the eight years of her life.” 

The color had been mounting higher and 
higher in Elizabeth’s cheek. “ Arthur Lenox ! ” 
she exclaimed, incredulously. 

“At your service, Elizabeth Eaton,” the 
young man answered, laying down his oars 
while their hands met in a cordial, lingering 
clasp. 

“But you have changed so,” she objected. 
“ I can’t see the least trace of my old play- 
mate.” 

“Perhaps you will, ’Lizabeth,” he said, re- 
turning to the old childhood name, “ when you 
get a little more used to me, and aren’t so afraid 
to look a fellow in the face.” 

“ The idea of being afraid of Arthur Lenox ! ” 
Elizabeth said, scornfully, but, even as she spoke, 
her glance fell before the warmth of his gaze. 
“ I am, though, a little. It is because you are 
no longer Arthur Lenox. One must remember 
your years and dignity, and say Mr. Lenox, 
now.” 

“ I do not see the necessity, Miss Eaton. 
There is your boat. May I speak of it by the 


88 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


name which is engraved thereon, or must that, 
too, be referred to as Miss Eaton ? ” 

“As you please,” Elizabeth answered, de- 
murely. “ Swing around a little, please, so I 
can get at the tow-line. Shall I fasten it to 
this one, or do you leave me now to my own 
devices ? ” 

“ I know my manners better than that. I 
propose to take Elizabeth Eaton in tow. What 
a dignified name for a rowboat ! Why don’t 
you ask me some questions ? Don’t you want 
to know where I came from, and whither I am 
going, and why I fall asleep on solitary islands, 
and what sort of a fellow I have grown into 
since you kissed me good-by ? ” 

“ I didn’t ! ” Elizabeth began, indignantly ; 
“ or if I did, you have no business to remember 
it.” 

“Very well, you didn’t, then. But if you did 
not, it was outrageously mean of you, for, if I 
remember aright, I was weeping copiously and 
swearing eternal friendship, and this day proves 
how I have kept that vow.” 

“ By falling tranquilly asleep on a distant 
island, and waiting until I row across to waken 
you from your slumbers.” 


l’envoi. 


89 


“ I came into Penobscot Bay yesterday after- 
noon on the Psyche. There’s a camp on 
Wood Island, where some of the boys come every 
summer. This morning I was sent out to get 
the lay of the land and forage for supplies. I 
remembered the vegetable garden on the island 
we have just left, and it seemed to me a noble 
opportunity to acquire corn and potatoes, and at 
the same time bind the chain of old associations. 
I found the island deserted and the vegetables 
a minus quantity, so I mooned around just as you 
did, and ‘ looked before and after, and pined for 
what is not ; ’ and at last, the day being warm, I 
fell sweetly asleep, as a man of clear conscience 
is justified in doing. The rest you know. 
What you do not know is, that I had set apart 
to-morrow to visit uncle Eph’s island and try 
to seek out my old friends. I had made some 
inquiries in Summerport and knew that uncle 
Eph and aunt Lizy lived there still.” 

“ You are doing rather a poor job at rowing, 
for a member of the ’varsity crew,” Elizabeth 
suggested, mischievously. 

“ I am not in haste, Miss Elizabeth Eaton. 
Do you see that black line of rocks just off the 
bow ? Once, on a summer evening long ago, I 


90 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


clung to those jagged teeth, weak and despair- 
ing enough, and had it not been for the little 
playmate who gave her strength to save mine, 
my bones would be whitening down in the sea- 
caves somewhere at this moment. There have 
been sad things and mistaken things in my life 
since that day, but never anything so unworthy 
that I cannot look into her face and tell her 
that I have tried to live in manhood and honor 
the life she gave back to me.” 

There were tears in Elizabeth’s eyes as she 
returned the brave sweetness of his clear glance. 
“ That is something to thank God for, Arthur. 
Do you know, there has always been a strange 
sense of peace mingled with my recollections of 
that awful time. It almost seemed to my child- 
ish heart that Jesus was so close by I heard him 
speak. I have often longed to feel that assur- 
ance of personal nearness again.” 

“There have been some hard things in my 
life since then,” the young man said. “ I have 
never been able to make myself speak of these 
things much, but somehow it is easy to talk to 
you. The years seem to roll away, and I have 
my little playmate again. You remember my 
beautiful mother, and how I loved her ? She 


l’envoi. 


91 


was terribly ill that summer, you know, but she 
recovered, and it seemed to me that no other 
woman could ever be so lovely, so joyous, so 
sweet as she was. Three years after I went 
away from here, my father had to go abroad on 
business, and she went with him. They left 
me at school in New York, because I had already 
lost so much time in my studies. I went to the 
dock to see them off, and I remember that I 
loved and admired them so much in my boyish 
heart, that I wondered why all the people did 
not turn to look at my brave, beautiful father 
and mother. That was the last time I ever saw 
them. No one knows the fate of that steamer, 
but she never came into port. I have had 
money and luxury, and external abundance, but 
nothing can ever make up to me for that loss.” 

“ Some of the girls at school had such lovely 
mothers,” Elizabeth said, softly. “ Many a 
night I have lain in the dark and cried because 
I never knew mine. You are richer than I.” 

“ I used to think my mother looked like the 
pictures of St. Cecilia. I told her so once, 
and assured her solemnly that I should always, 
always love her best. I have never forgotten 
what she said to me : ‘ The women a man loves 


92 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


best should always be his saints. Some day, 
my dear little boy, I think, if you live, you will 
add another saint to your calendar.’ I think I 
have found my saint, Elizabeth.” 

They had been talking together as simply as 
they had used to do in the old childhood rela- 
tion, but when she raised her beautiful sincere 
eyes to his, there stole into the glance of each 
the dawning shadow of an emotion which the 
childhood friendship had never known. 

The Prince had come once more to awaken 
the Princess to the mightiest and sweetest of 
all the meanings of life, and the shadow which 
rose in their eyes was not the shadow of the 
old boy and girl love ; it was the beginning of 
the love of man and woman. 

Neither of them knew just what the miracle 
was which was being wrought for them. The 
world had grown strangely brighter, that was 
all. The vistas of life were full of sunny 
places. The renewing of old ties seemed to 
open a fountain of happiness in the heart of 
each. So, little by little, they filled out the 
interrupted story of the past, and presaged the 
future with the sanguine expectations of youth, 
and the most trivial confidences, the idlest 



“ ‘ I USED TO THINK MY MOTHER LOOKED LIKE 

ST. CECILIA.’” 










































































































. 


























. 














































































l’envoi. 


95 


laughter and jesting, became sweet with the 
new magic that cast a glamour over all things. 
Because she was a woman, all womanhood be- 
came more sacred, and because he was a man 
all manhood grew nobler, for this love of theirs 
was to be no fever fit of passion, no scorpion- 
growth stung to death by its own fire, but the 
pure, constant affection of one man for one 
woman. 

The sweet beginnings of love are nearer 
to laughter than to tears, so the Prince and 
Princess talked lightly to each other. 

“Does the same bird sing still, Elizabeth, 
in the tall pine that grows out of the Norse 
sailor’s grave ? ” 

“ The song is just the same. In the nature 
of things I imagine the singer must have 
changed. Do you know, Arthur, I have a 
‘ pi-anner ’ of my own now ? How little I 
thought in the old days that I should ever 
attain such glory ! I earned it myself, too. 
But you haven’t told me what prizes you have 
earned for yourself in life.” 

“I mentioned that I sometimes rowed on the 
’varsity crew.” 

“Is that all ? ” 


96 


THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 


“ One or two other little matters, which I 
shall probably bring to light sooner or later. 
A fellow doesn’t like to do all his bragging 
in the first half hour. I am a graduate and 
a post-graduate, Elizabeth. I got through two 
months ago, and now I have to find out what 
I’m good for. How long do you propose to go 
missionarying around on remote islands ? ” 

“A whole life would be none too long,” the 
Princess said. “ Think of the gospel of hope 
you brought me, and the change it made.” 

“ I will think of it, because it reminds me 
that you must owe me a good deal in return. 
In some things I’m not generous. I shall 
demand payment to the uttermost farthing.” 

They were nearing uncle Eph’s island now, 
and as the boat swung around the point, shut- 
ting out the sight of the long, dark reef in the 
distance, the Prince said, with a sudden change 
in his voice, “ I suppose that black rock will 
always seem to me like the boundary-line be- 
tween time and eternity. Do you remember, 
Elizabeth, how we said our prayers there ? I 
wasn’t much of a chap in those days. You 
had to hold my head on your shoulder.” 

He saw that tears had gathered in the 


l’envoi. 


97 


Princess’s dark eyes, and knew that his own 
heart was melting within him, so, because he 
could not put his arm about her and comfort 
her, as he would have done in that childhood 
day, he added, with seeming lightness : 

“ One of these days I shall build a monu- 
ment on that reef to commemorate the spot 
where the pie went down.” 

Then they looked at each other and laughed, 
for the child-heart lived in them still ; and the 
wind stealing over the summer sea, and the 
sunbeams dancing on the dancing wave, and 
the far-away bird singing in the tree that had 
its root in a grave, all had one song, — “Oh, 
the world will always be sweet, sweet, sweet, 
so long as youth and love are in it ! ” 


THE END. 








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THE FARRIER’S DOG AND HIS FELLOW. By Wilt Allen 
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THE PRINCE OF THE PIN ELVES. By Charles Lee Sleight. 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. By “ Ouida.” 

THE NURNBERG STOVE. By “Ouida.” 

OLE MAMMY’S TORMENT. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 

THE LITTLE COLONEL. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 

BIG BROTHER. By Annie Fellows-Johnston. 

A LOYAL LITTLE MAID. By Edith Robinson. 

THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE. By Miss Muloch. 

THE ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE. By Miss Muloch. 

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A GREAT EMERGENCY. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 

THE TRINITY FLOWER. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 

STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. By Juliana Horatia Ewing. 
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RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. By Dr. John Brown. 

THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. A Legend of Stiria. By 
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THE YOUNG KING. THE STAR CHILD. Two Tales. 


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MEMORIES OF THE MANSE. Glimpses of Scottish Life and 
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CHRISTMAS AT THOMPSON HALL. By Anthony Trollope. 

A PROVENCE ROSE. By Louisa de la Rams (Ouida). 

IN DISTANCE AND IN DREAM. By M. F. Sweetsbr. 

WILL O’ THE MILL. By Robert Louis Stevenson. 

THREE CHILDREN OF GALILEE. A Life of Christ for 

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Books for Boys and Girls. 

A Dog of Flanders. 

A Christmas Story. By Louisa de la Rame (Ouida). i vol., 
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The Niirnberg Stove. 

By Louisa de la Rame (Ouida). i vol., square i2ino, cloth, 
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Another of Ouida’s charming stories, delightful alike to old and young. With fifty 
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Timothy Dole. 

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Bebee : or, Two Little Wooden Shoes. 

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The Young Pearl Divers. 

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Feats On The Fiord. 

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This admirable book, read and enjoyed by so many young people a generation ago 
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the luxury of good paper now given to it. 

The Fairy Folk of Blue Hill. 

A story of folk-lore by Lily F. Wesselhoeft, author of 
“ Sparrow the Tramp,” etc., with fifty-five illustrations from original 
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A new volume by Mrs. Wesselhoeft, well known as one of our best writers for 
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who has read her earlier books. 

Miss Gray’s Girls ; or, Summer Days in the Scottish 

Highlands. 

By Jeannette A. Grant. With about sixty illustrations in half- 
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quarto, cloth and ornamental side, $1.50. 

A pleasantly told story of a summer trip through Scotland, somewhat out of the 
beaten track. A teacher, starting at Glasgow, takes a lively party of girls, her 
pupils, through the Trossachs to Oban, through the Caledonian Canal to Inver- 
ness, and as far north as Brora, missing no part of the matchless scenery and no 
place of historic interest. Returning through Perth, Stirling, Edinburgh, Melrose, 
and Abbotsford, the enjoyment of the party and the interest of the reader never 
lag. With all the sightseeing, not the least interesting features of the book are 
the glimpses of Scottish home life which the party from time to time are fortunate 
enough to be able to enjoy through the kindly hospitality of friends. 


Published by L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY, 
196 Summer St., Boston, Mass. 






























































